The Sword and Laser discussion

When this pick was announced, I was surprised to see that Magician had been split into two separate books. I'm not sure if it's always been that way in the US and, admittedly, it is a long read but reading it again I think the publishers did it a disservice by turning it into two volumes.

The first part is, as others have noted, fairly 'standard' fantasy and setting the scene - though when I first read this book over 30 years ago (now I feel really old) I remember reading well into the early morning, unable to put the book down.

The second part is when the story starts to pull together; the protagonists are no longer children and now able to influence their own lives and the invaders stop being so one dimensional. The story branches off in new directions, before being all tied together for the ending and it feels like an ending as well, with the major plot points resolved still leaving room for the story to be expanded.

If I was reading this as a single volume, I'm not sure I'd want to continue onto the second 'book' which would be a shame as, despite some noted issues - I think there are only 7 female characters that have spoken lines - I did enjoy the re-read and it's made me want to pick up the next book, Silverthorn. I remember that as being the best book in the trilogy and am interested in seeing if it lives up to my recollection.

(It's also made me want to re-read the excellent Daughter of the Empire series that was written by Janny Wurts. This is a much stronger series of novels and breathes life into the political machinations that play such an important part of Tsurani society. If you like political books with a female lead, this is definitely something look at.)

I agree, the Daughter of the Empire series was great - such an interesting culture and one of the first fantasy series I read back in the day that had a strong female character.

"Milamber and Valheru" aka "Magician: Master" was by far the better half of Magician.

Anyone that just reads the first half "Magician: Apprentice" aka "Pug and Tomas" and judges the book only on that half, are really doing the book a disservice.

The first half is set-up and the second half is the pay off.

Also agree that the Empire trilogy was brilliant.

Dang it, now I have to read Magician: Master to see if it is as interesting as you are saying. And I was going to work on the Way of Kings. Maybe next month. :-)

Tassie Dave wrote: "The first half is set-up and the second half is the pay off.
..."

except, well, the first half is 485 pages. Which is ton of setup.

Yeah, I'm at about the 85% mark and feel like I'm reading a 500 page intro.

By set-up I mean that there's no resolution to the story. There is plenty of action in the first half.

M:A is like Acts 1 & 2 of a 4 part Story. The pieces have been put on the board. The game has started and we are at a stalemate. Chekov's gun has been shown.

Your getting the set up, the conflict and the heroes in peril, but you need M:M for any of the usual Act 3 & 4 story of rising conflict and climax to the crises.

and the gun to be fired ;-)

The difference between M:A and M:M is what I was trying (and clearly failing) to articulate in the other thread. M:M is so vastly improved: it delves further into characters, the worldbuilding is more complex, the political and military situation is deeper (on both sides of the conflict). Even the exposition and dialogue feel less janky and lurching around.

My other post was about why there is such a vast different. Without looking into the publication dates, I did wonder if Feist had to pull back on the story he was telling in M:A to create a book publishers thought suitable for a first-timer, or if he had extra time/editorial support to improve M:M? Or did he really just ramp it up at the half-way mark?

Either way, if you like anything about M:A at all, you're going to really enjoy M:M and you should keep going.

I just finished it. I'm not up for a 20ish book series but may continue. EDIT: With the trilogy, not the whole series. After reading a few books coming in off library hold.

Incidentally, I returned the book asap so the next person could have it. LA public library is having a lengthy delay between return on Amazon and the their taking it off your loaned books. I also returned it on the LAPL website. I recommend this if you're trying to be friendly to other readers by returning.

Elizabeth wrote: "My other post was about why there is such a vast different. Without looking into the publication dates, I did wonder if Feist had to pull back on the story he was telling in M:A to create a book publishers thought suitable for a first-timer, or if he had extra time/editorial support to improve M:M? Or did he really just ramp it up at the half-way mark?."

When I was looking for the book, I found 3 versions of the book. I selected the newest book.

From the Forward of the Magician 10th anniversary addition:
... But insofar as it was a first effort, some pressures of the marketplace did manifest themselves during the creation of the final book. Magician is by anyone’s measure a large book. When the penultimate manuscript version sat upon my editor’s desk, I was informed that some fifty thousand words would have to be cut. And cut I did. Mostly line by line, but a few scenes were either truncated or excised....

... In any event, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the original publication of Magician, I have been permitted to return to this work, to reconstruct and change, to add and cut as I see fit, to bring forth what is known in publishing as the “Author’s Preferred Edition” of the work....

Originally Magician was published as a single volume in the US but then it was republished as two volumes four years later and seems to have remained as two volumes ever since.

I did think that maybe it could have been an attempt to increase sales ahead of releasing book 2 but Silverthorn was released before Magician was republished.

Either way, can anyone else think of any other first books that were originally released as a single volume before being split like this?

The Serpent, the first book in Jane Gaskell's Atlan series, was split into two parts (the second being The Dragon) in later printings.

C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen was initially published as a single (massive) hardcover and actually split into three volumes for mass-market paperback. (Which Cherryh hated, and now it's available as a single-volume trade paperback.)

When they started putting out Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (beginning with Quicksilver) in mass-market paperback, not only did they split the massive hardcover into multiple volumes, but my understanding is that they (presumably with Stephenson's approval and/or assistance) went in and started moving things around so that the individual parts would work better on their own, although I don't think they ever actually finished the trilogy?

And when Feist did the Author's Preferred Edition, they did initially publish it as a single-volume hardcover, although they split it back up for the mass-market paperback.

the first that comes to mind is the grandaddy of them all the Lord of the rings. I can be clarified here: but everyone knows the LoTR trilogy but the middle earth trilogy was suppose to be the Hobbit, LoTR, and Simillions but the publisher thought LoTR was to long and split it into three book. the LoTR was originally intended by Tolkien to be 6 parts with each part of the trilogy split in two. so as far as I can tell since Tolkien intended the LoTR to be one volume. novel being split goes back to the beginning of the fantasy genre. did I get that right?

Having sat at the table with Ray and his publisher at the time the novel was split into two, I can tell you for certain the decision rested on the size of the book.

A paperback spine will crack into two pieces when the book is too large. Rather than produce a known defect, the book was split into two parts, with the title reflecting (hopefully) the fact they were actually one story.

This has happened with other titles in my experience. (Ships/Warhost) - and the cracked spine issue was all too familiar to me growing up, borrowing my Dad's books - most of his copies of Michener's work, and Clancy's, were held together with rubber bands when the spines split.

Hardbacks that are too fat, also, require sewn bindings; an expense many publishers avoid to keep the price down, since glued bindings are cheaper to produce, and durable, under a certain length.

Lee wrote: "the first that comes to mind is the grandaddy of them all the Lord of the rings. I can be clarified here: but everyone knows the LoTR trilogy but the middle earth trilogy was suppose to be the Hobb..."

That’s not how the publishing of Tolkien’s work went, nor is it what Aethon was looking for. Aethon asked about books originally published as one volume and then split during subsequent printings. LotR is a single book but was never published as such, due to the limitations of printing and binding technology.

The Hobbit was a success so his publishers asked for a sequel. Since he’d already written the Silmarillion decades before the Hobbit, he submitted that. The publisher was like, “What’s this junk? More hobbits!” LotR became the Hobbit sequel after other story ideas were rejected. It was published 17 years later.

Janny wrote: "This has happened with other titles in my experience. (Ships/Warhost) - and the cracked spine issue was all too familiar to me growing up"

So The Ships of Merior and Warhost are meant to be one book? Isn’t Ships like a thousand pages? Why didn’t that become a trilogy? Seems like something they’d prefer.

Trike wrote: "Janny wrote: "This has happened with other titles in my experience. (Ships/Warhost) - and the cracked spine issue was all too familiar to me growing up"

So The Ships of Merior and W..."

Totally intended as one book - only the USA hardback appeared that way, it is truly 'half a story' with an unresolved wallop if it's not read as a single story. USA split the paperback at the 'halfpoint' twist, due to the problem of cracking the binding. The UK didn't sew their bindings, period, so the manuscript was too long/not that an exception could not have been made. I would have rejected, flat, the concept of a 'trilogy', the story had no comfortable way to accommodate that at all. Two parts worked best. Plenty of fat books get produced with sufficient clout behind them. This book didn't have that editorial push, and they wanted a quicker release for a book tour.

(off topic, sorry, she asked)

Janny wrote: "(off topic, sorry, she asked)"

Off topic, but greatly interesting!

I agree, I am always impressed by the sword and laser community and the interesting insight they give into the industry.

First time posting here. I really enjoyed the Magician Apprentice and finished reading it. Liked it so much that I am currently reading the Magician Master. The second book is really good and is better than the first. Great adventure and fun to read so far. Like the first book, It is around 500 hundred pages. This is the first monthly book pick that I have really liked since I joined this group. The only other monthly book pick that I really liked was the Trail of Lightning but I didn’t like it enough to read the next book in the series. I plan to read the other two books in the Magician series. I want to thank the person who recommended the Magician as a monthly pick. Even though there seems to be a lot of books out there, it is hard to find a really good one.

glad you enjoyed it Dana, thanks for posting!